Despite the difficult economic environment in 2009, the Jackson County government managed to finish the year nearly $950,000 in the black.

That was the finding in the 2009 audit presented at Monday night’s Jackson County Board of Commissioners meeting.

As in the past, the majority of county spending went to public safety with $12.3 million in expenses, followed by general government at $4.8 million, public works at $3.6 million and judicial expenses at $3.1 million.

On the income side, taxes made up the vast majority of income at $28.2 million followed by service charges at $3.7 million.

Among the highlights in the audit:

• The county’s fire districts took in $2.4 million collectively during 2009 and spent $2.7 million in the year. The districts have a total reserve balance of $1.8 million.

• The county uses general fund dollars to subsidize several departments that generate other income from fees. The largest amount of those transfer funds went to the EMS/Ambulance at $1.8 million; parks and recreation at $800,200; E911 at $419,000; planning and zoning at $359,900; and the senior center at $292,500.

• The wealthiest fire district in the county in 2009 was West Jackson with revenues of $638,000 followed by South Jackson with income of $435,800. The poorest district was Arcade with income of $78,900.

• Jackson Trail Fire District had the most money in the bank with $604,400.

• Arcade Fire District was the only district with a negative fund balance at $14,500.

• The county’s total debt is in the neighborhood of $172 million, excluding school and city debts.

• The county’s net tax digest was $2.5 billion in 2009, more than double the digest in 2000, which was just over $1 billion.

That is one of the dumbest things I have heard said. Everyone who works has families to support. Those who work for private and public alike have the same needs. Employees who work for the county have not only endured furlough days but also loss of all retirement benefits and endured 15% health insurance cost increase while not having a pay raise or cost of living adjustment since 2007. The whole time the county is adding nearly a million dollars to cash reserves. These people are just like you and worry about putting food on the tables to feed their family. Your idea that any one of them can be replaced easily is also as stupid. Quite a few positions in the county are also specialized positions that are common to private sector and government alike. GIS, Information Technology, Finance, Human Resources are just a few that come to mind that can leave the county and find jobs in the private sector. Like it or not the county competes with private sector for a lot of these specialized positions. You can only take from individuals pay checks for so long before they look elsewhere, especially specialized fields like mentioned above that have options even today in these harsh times. I will go ahead and tell you no I am not a county employee but I am an owner of a technology company in Athens. I am writing this from experience .Most of the specialist I hire I have to recruit out of Atlanta because the local population lacks the education or technical skills necessary for our work. I suspect that’s the same for a lot of the counties positions you think can so blatantly be replaced the next day after they leave. Let’s be like Barrow County squeeze them all till our top people leave, and then panic when everything goes to hell. Or better yet watch when times do turn good again and half the county work force leaves because they remember how the county pillaged them while adding nearly a million to reserves.

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